Britain’s Brexit Mess Gets Worse

  Bottom Line Up Front Britain’s Parliament descended into angry shouting on September 25 as the country remains in turmoil over Brexit. Even for normally boisterous British politics, recent sessions have revealed a deep-seated dysfunction. The U.K.’s highest court had earlier declared the prorogation of Parliament to be unlawful. There ...

The Global Divide Over the 5G National Security Risk

Fresh off the heels of the Munich security conference, a rift remains between the U.S. and its allies over their approach to 5G networks and managing the potential national security risks of allowing Chinese vendors to participate in the development of the technology.   The U.S. has been working to ...

What’s in a Name? Membership in NATO

  Bottom Line Up Front On January 31, Greece announced it would vote on the proposed NATO accession plan put forward by the newly anointed country of North Macedonia. On January 25, Greece’s parliament approved the change from Macedonia to the Republic of North Macedonia, ending a nearly three-decade long ...

May Survives a Vote of ‘No Confidence,’ but What Next for Brexit?

Bottom Line Up Front On January 16, British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament. The vote came one day after a historic margin overwhelmingly rejected the Prime Minister's Brexit plan. There are now 70 days until the U.K. leaves the European Union and the details of ...

The Globalization of Local Protests: The Case of France’s ‘Yellow Vests’

  Bottom Line Up Front  For the ninth weekend in a row, protesters gathered in massive numbers in Paris and other French cities as part of the ‘Yellow Vests’ protests. On January 14, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed a desire to launch a months-long ‘national dialogue’ on issues raised by ...

Russian Disinformation Campaigns Continue to Sow Doubt in the West

  Bottom Line Up Front Russia continues to use social media disinformation to sow doubt, effectively deploying an army of trolls across the Internet. On almost every issue—race, religion, government—Russian social media campaigns aim to create division in western societies. With false scare tactics, these campaigns have made Brexit a ...

Costs and Consequences of Counterterrorism

  Bottom Line Up Front The U.K. Parliament has issued a report detailing shortcomings with how its security services handled five terrorism cases in 2017. The challenges came not in the responses to these attacks, but rather the inability to ‘connect dots’ or deter people already identified as potential threats. ...